Dena Almansoori at E&

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REV: JULY 27, 2023
EMILY TRUELOVE
MICHELLE ZHANG
ALPANA THAPAR
Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change

at a UAE Telco Transforming to a Global Techco
(Abridged)
In January 2023, Dena Almansoori scanned her emails, noting many questions about the new
internal mobility policy that United Arab Emirates (UAE)-headquartered e& (formerly Etisalat Group)
had recently launched. As its Group Chief Human Resources Officer (GCHRO), Almansoori was
playing a critical role in e&’s transformation from a regional telecommunications company (telco) to a
global technology and investment conglomerate. Her mandate was to transform the operating model
and culture to create a high-performing, inclusive environment that would serve as a “magnet” for top
talent globally, allowing e& to compete with the likes of tech giants. This was an ambitious goal and
changing the manager-employee relationship was a key aspect of it.
Since joining in 2020, Almansoori and other leaders, had made “seismic” changes to the
approximately 70,000-person organization’s strategy, structure, talent profile, and people-processes.
But changing the culture, which Almansoori saw as antithetical to being a tech company, was a work
in progress. She believed the internal mobility policy (see Exhibit 1) was a change lever. It allowed
employees to apply for internal jobs without their manager’s permission, with the goal of creating a
talent marketplace within the organization, and of changing the manager-employee relationship. In
2022, internal transfers had risen fourfold from 2021, and Almansoori saw evidence of a cultural shift.
Yet, despite the overall positive response, she was concerned by pushback from some managers.
Almansoori wondered if she should amend the policy, and which suggestions, from whom, to take if
so.
Dena Almansoori
Dena Almansoori grew up as the only daughter in a close-knit family of three children. She moved
around a lot as a child because of her father's diplomatic career. She lived in the U.K. for five years as
a child. She attended high school in France, Brazil, and the UAE. Almansoori reflected:
This case is an abridged version of "Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change at a UAE Telco Transforming to a Global Techco" HBS
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This document is authorized for use only in HBS Faculty's the YPO Presidents' Program Week 2, Fall 2023 at Harvard Business School from Oct 2023 to Dec 2024.
423-059 Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change at a UAE Telco Transforming to a Global Techco (Abridged)
When I told people that I was from the UAE, they would ask, ‘What’s that?’ When I
would say, ‘It’s the United Arab Emirates,’ they would still be puzzled. At that point, the
UAE was not as big and recognizable as it is now. People asked me questions like, ‘Did
you take a camel to school?’ A lot of the drive I have today comes from earlier experiences
like this that made me really want to showcase my country.
In 1998, Almansoori received a full scholarship to study at Boston University, where she double
majored in finance and management information systems. When the 9/11 attacks occurred, she
recalled, “Students from the Middle East region, especially Emirati students, were evacuated because
of the backlash and violence some of us were experiencing at the time. But I pushed to stay and finish
my education.” She noted: “Moving around a lot and having lived in Boston during 9/11 built my
resilience and adaptability. A devastating event like that…expands your understanding of human
behavior and teaches you to lead with compassion and patience in the face of adversity.”
Building a Global Career

Upon graduation, Almansoori returned to the UAE, working in the data and consultancy division
at Schlumberger, one of the world’s largest oil & gas services companies. Her first role involved P&L
responsibility. When her manager asked her to move into an HR role, she was confused: “I didn’t have
a great perception of HR. I assumed they just hired and fired people.” At Schlumberger, promotion
hinged on making organizational rotations. Almansoori thought she would do the rotation and go back
to the business side, but “absolutely fell in love and realized HR, if done right, can be a company’s
biggest competitive advantage.” She moved from a Dubai-based HR role overseeing the Middle East
and Asia region to the Paris headquarters, where she was part of a small team that transformed the HR
function worldwide. Once “extremely shy,” she overcame fears like public speaking.
Almansoori went on to work in HR roles at U.S. general merchandise retailer Target and TD Bank
in Toronto. At the end of 2016, wanting to return to her home country, she accepted a position at the
Central Bank of the UAE. In February 2020, Almansoori left the Bank and founded WhiteBox, an HR
technology startup that leveraged machine learning and network analysis to help companies make
smarter data-driven people decisions. She noted: “AI was having a big impact on HR, but I was
concerned about the risk of bias at scale due to some of these machine learning algorithms. WhiteBox
was about using AI to increase transparency and decrease bias.” Almansoori relished in her role as
Founder and CEO of a technology startup. With month-over-month revenue growth in the first year,
she felt confident her corporate days were over.
Opportunity at Etisalat: A telco in transition

In the fall of 2020, the Etisalat Group CEO (GCEO), Hatem Dowidar, along with some of the board
members, called Almansoori about the GCHRO role at Etisalat, a regional telecommunications
company founded in 1976. At the time, Etisalat had thousands of employees, multi-billion-dollar
revenues, and a presence in 16 countries. Newly appointed GCEO Dowidar had joined Etisalat as Chief
Operating Officer five years prior, after a nearly two-decade career at Vodafone and a five-year stint at
Procter and Gamble. Like most Emiratis and residents of the UAE, Almansoori knew Etisalat well,
given its critical role in UAE history. She noted: “Etisalat was not just a company. It was the bedrock
of our nation. It set the infrastructure and foundation of the country so that we could fulfill the
ambitious vision of being the best globally.”
Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change at a UAE Telco Transforming to a Global Techco (Abridged) 423-059
Why Etisalat Was Looking to Transition and Needed New Leadership

Etisalat was competing in increasingly mature markets and facing pressure from born-digital tech
companies like Facebook and Google, which were rapidly expanding their businesses and eating into
traditional telco revenues. On the consumer side, video streaming services like Netflix were poaching
cable TV subscribers, just as smartphone apps like Apple’s Facetime created further competition.
Etisalat had long operated in a highly regulated market, and to ensure the safety of its users, the
regulatory body had imposed restrictions on some VoIP services, such as WhatsApp and Zoom. Some
of those restrictions were opened to enable remote working due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile,
on the enterprise side, Etisalat faced increasing competition from tech firms as they expanded their
presence with offerings such as private network solutions. As a result, these tech companies were
becoming formidable competitors. Dowidar noted:
In the late 1990s and 2000s, a dozen telcos were on the list of the world’s biggest 50
companies by market cap. Tech companies like Google were small relative to the telcos.
Facebook didn’t even exist. Fast forward 20 years: the market cap of Apple is bigger than
that of the 10 biggest telcos combined. Those tech companies became giants because of
their entrepreneurial approach to expanding into and disrupting businesses seemingly
beyond their own. Meanwhile, telcos still had to evolve and move away from focusing on
only selling minutes, text, and data connectivity.
Masood Mahmood, CEO Etisalat UAE, noted: “There was the sense that the sector as a whole
reached a stagnation stage, what else can be done?”
An Ambitious Mandate and Weighty Choice

Almansoori recalled telling Dowidar, “I just left the corporate world, I’m not sure I want to come
back.” Moreover, the role’s mandate—to overhaul Etisalat’s people, processes, and culture to better
position it to compete in this evolving competitive landscape—was a challenging one. In 2020, the
average age of employees was 43 years old, and most had expertise associated with the legacy telco
business. While employees felt “great pride” working for the company, many also came for a position
of “safety” where “your job is secure.” In addition, Almansoori knew that some of Etisalat’s policies
were outdated and would be an impediment to hiring top talent. For example, while working from
home had become more acceptable during the pandemic, some managers still focused more on hours
worked versus output and impact. Moreover, building trust between managers and employees was
challenging. A member of the HR department said: “Employees needed their managers’ approval to
apply for a new role internally, so they didn’t apply often as employees didn’t want to be seen as
disloyal by showing interest in other roles. Additionally, development conversations rarely happened
so people often stayed in their roles for years.”
From her experience at global companies, Almansoori knew that Etisalat’s existing culture could
impede future growth, but she believed that with change, it could be an asset. She also believed that
Etisalat was uniquely positioned to pull off an even bolder future than what it had accomplished in the
past. First, the company had a unique capital advantage. Group Chief Financial Officer Karim Bennis
noted, “During COVID, agility was key. We implemented an important cost optimization program
without impacting the business, and we protected our margins and level of profitability, and most
importantly, cash generation.” Secondly, boldness was in the UAE’s DNA. Dowidar noted: “There’s
this ethos of trying to be bigger, better, faster. And as a telco, there’s a lot we can do.” The company’s
boldness appealed to Almansoori, who noted: “I think a lot of my drive goes back to the vision of our
country’s leadership and founding father [Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was known for
forming the UAE]. It’s that sense of ambition and urgency. That nothing is impossible.”
When she accepted the position, Almansoori became the company’s first C-suite female executive,
and one of the youngest, in the company's history. Dowidar reflected:
The previous management was not very open to organizational change. The
management team was comprised only of men. I believed it was essential to signal change
by not only hiring a great HR person, but also illustrating a diversity agenda. While there
was no reason on paper as to why we didn’t have any gender diversity on the top team,
we did not have it. We had identified two or three very, very capable individuals. Where
Dena had the edge was, she had worked in technology, she had an entrepreneurial spirit
as demonstrated by her startup, and she was very experienced outside the UAE. She had
practiced HR outside of the protected local market. She had a competition and hunger in
her that made her, frankly, the perfect candidate.
Almansoori noted: “My decision to join came down to purpose. I understood Hatem’s vision to be
a leading global player, and he understood mine rooted in impact. We were like, ‘OK, let’s do this.
Let’s be bold and courageous to make this company incredible. Let’s leave a legacy.’”
Early changes at Etisalat

Almansoori joined Etisalat at the end of 2020, and soon, major organizational changes were
underway, with close board supervision. First, Etisalat’s leaders coalesced around the idea of
transforming from a regional telco to a global technology company (techco). They had already been
considering how to position the organization for success, but early efforts were focused on maximizing
efficiency and productivity. As Humaid Al Ajmani, the Head of the Transformation team, put it, “but
once we started really looking at it, that’s when we changed from incremental improvements on the
telco side to think radically, transforming the operating model to survive and be sustainable for the
future.”
Second, to support the techco vision, the company restructured from its single telecommunications
business into five verticals: a telecom business which was tasked with reimagining its services; an
enterprise business, which worked on the digital transformation of governments, corporations and
other enterprises; a consumer lifestyle vertical focused on platforms for entertainment, retail, and
financial services, such as a recently launched fintech platform; a capital arm, which focused on venture
capital and growth equity; and an international vertical, which managed the organization’s regional
and international portfolio. The hope was to foster agility, innovation, and entrepreneurialism. One of
Almansoori’s responsibilities was to develop the organizational structure, role assignments, reporting
lines, and create the rewards framework for each vertical in the new operating model.
Third, to optimize costs and bring in the new talent needed to pull off the techco strategy, e&
modified over 2,500 existing roles and created over 300 new roles. Etisalat had a mix of white and blue-
collar workers, from cloud architects, data scientists, and cyber security professionals, to workers fixing
cabling inside customers’ homes. In refreshing the employee base, the priorities were to retain or
acquire the right technical skills, and to develop new mindsets. Etisalat shored up areas like cloud, IoT,
and cybersecurity expertise, and added new expertise in fintech, mobile, and coding, often through
acquisitions. Dowidar noted:
We hired female talent to run the fintech business from Turkcell. We hired a male from
Eurosport and a few other European networks to run our TV entertainment business. I
think being headquartered in the UAE is also an advantage, being a very cosmopolitan
and super safe place, with an amazing work environment, and low taxation. It makes it
very easy to attract talent.
Fourth, alongside these changes, the leadership team itself was transforming. When Almansoori
joined, Dowidar had close to 20 direct reports, though he wanted to decrease this number and do some
“shuffling.” Tasked to help drive the process, Almansoori pushed for a “rigorous assessment and
selection process for all senior management positions,” which included technical and behavioral
interviews as well as psychometrics. Almansoori noted, “Some were concerned that the process
signaled a lack of trust and asked, ‘Why are we testing people?’ I explained ‘It’s not a test. It’s about
creating a fair, consistent, and transparent process and giving everybody an equal opportunity to
demonstrate their capabilities and career ambitions.’” The result was a 10-person senior management
team: one-third had retained their position, one-third were promoted or moved internally, and one-
third were new hires (see Exhibit 2 for the company’s senior management team). A woman was
appointed from within to become Group Chief Legal & Compliance officer. Dowidar held weekly
meetings for his direct reports, and monthly half-day meetings for the top 35 executives.
Almansoori’s key HR initiatives

Almansoori believed that developing what she called a “people-first culture” was crucial to pulling
off the techco strategy, and that realizing it would be countercultural. First, it meant changing manager-
employee relations. Second, it required investment. Almansoori explained:
If people are our greatest asset, then we must invest in maintaining and protecting this
asset as we would any other. Initially, this was not a popular view, with some leaders
fearing it was risky to throw time and money into the ‘unknown.’ My argument was if we
accept that people are the key to our future (which they agreed we did), then we have to
walk the talk.
Equalizing Benefits
One early change Almansoori pushed for was equalizing benefits (e.g., health insurance, education
reimbursement) for all employees regardless of their gender, marital status, joining date, etc.
Employees had described the previous policy, where there was not equalization, as a pain point.
Almansoori too believed the policy was anathema to attracting top talent. At one of her first senior
management team meetings, she proposed equalization. She reflected on the risk: “I knew that adding
costs during the pandemic was going to be contentious. But I also knew we could redeploy capital and
cut costs elsewhere. It was a matter of putting the business case together because it had to be done and
thankfully, I had Hatem’s support.” Almansoori described the meeting:
One person asked, ‘Why do we need to focus on diversity at this stage?’ Another said,
‘No, we can’t do this. It’s the middle of the pandemic, we’ve got to be cautious.’ The cost
impact was the biggest concern, given we had recently been focusing on cost efficiency.
And this makes sense, as a publicly listed company you need to think about shareholder
value. But I explained the business case behind the proposal along with how I would
ensure the cost impact is mitigated through cost reduction strategies elsewhere.
Equalizing gender benefits was the first policy that Almansoori submitted to the board for approval.
She recalled, “I wasn't nervous because it was the right thing to do, and I showed them the data.” The
board immediately approved the policy change and Almansoori announced it at a company meeting
on International Women's Day in March 2021. One employee described: “When Dena made the
announcement, I was watching it on Teams with several of my female colleagues and we collectively
cheered—we were so happy. We thought, ‘Oh my God, finally!’ It was a great moment for all women
in the Group.” A member of the senior management team reflected on the change:
We didn’t have people opposing it [equalizing benefits] before. It’s just that the topic
had never been discussed properly. We were waiting for a catalyst, and having a female
lead HR triggered the topic. Dena was the first female chief in the Group which in itself
was a big change. Additionally, she has a modern style of change which is all about
making things move. She doesn’t like the status quo. When she came to me saying ‘I
need your support’ on this and ‘I need the budget allocation to make this happen,’ even
though I knew this wasn’t budgeted, I clearly understood that it was the right thing to
do to take the organization forward and pledged my support to the initiative.
AI Graduate Program
Etisalat had to work hard to recruit and train new university graduates, especially in high-demand
fields such as programming. It had an 18-month onboarding program for new Emirati college
graduates, but the program had just a few participants each year and focused on Etisalat’s core work
areas. Almansoori designed an expanded program. She planned to bring in 100 new graduates
annually and put them through a nine-month AI graduate program with tracks for those in technical
and non-technical roles. In addition, all would learn “power skills” like collaboration, storytelling, and
problem-solving. Almansoori said, “We have to position our youth for the future of work and what
that will look like, whether they stay with us at e&, or move to another organization.”
Almansoori brought the idea to the leadership team for discussion, but “a few people said, ‘Why
do people with backgrounds in legal or HR need to know AI?’ and ‘This is going to be costly.’”
Almansoori explained that she would keep it all within the approved budget, but “there was a need to
invest in future leaders.” The approved program’s inaugural class had 103 members. The graduates
did “action” projects that they presented to senior management. For example, they scoured Dubai’s
Expo 2020 for potentially valuable technologies and proposed business ideas to senior management
panels based on them. Matthew Willsher, the GCEO’s Special Projects Advisor, explained: “You want
to connect top and bottom in an organization. I explained to the grads, “I want you to walk out of this
room and if you see one of [these leaders] in six months’ time, they might not remember your name,
but you can say, ‘Hi, I was in that meeting where we presented X idea and Y is what’s happening.’ So
this is about innovation capabilities but also about building a healthy organization.”
Transforming HR
Almansoori also re-organized the HR department, comprised of approximately 80 people. She
added employee experience, DE&I, and analytics functions, each critical for the techco transformation.
Almansoori recruited Ayesha Chughtai, who had previously worked with enterprise clients, to design
their customer experience. Chughtai described meeting Almansoori and her role: “I was working with
Dena on a project for my department and she asked me what my team did. I told her about our design
thinking work with clients, and she said, ‘Amazing! That’s what I want to bring to the employee
experience.’ She asked me to join HR. I would never have expected to be in HR, but Dena’s vision is
much bigger than traditional HR. It’s about creating an employee-centric organization.”
More broadly, Almansoori used her HR department as a forum for demonstrating a more
collaborative approach that managers could take with employees. For example, at meetings,
Almansoori encouraged employees from all levels to ask questions. Initially, “people didn’t want to
speak up,” as one attendee put it, noting it was unusual to speak up in the presence of senior leaders.
But, Almansoori repeatedly stressed the importance of “questioning everything.” Eventually, these
efforts began to pay off. Chughtai reflected: “Dena is so approachable. People talk about their time here
as ‘BD/AD’ as in ‘Before Dena’ and ‘After Dena,’ because it was a 180 shift.”
Gaining momentum
In parallel with Almansoori’s HR initiatives (see Exhibit 4 for full list), the senior management team
engaged in many activities intended to foster change. For example, Dowidar started quarterly,
company-wide town halls—with most employees attending remotely and a rotating group getting to
sit in the auditorium. Almansoori reached out to the brand and communications team to launch an
‘Ask Me Anything’ series, where employees were encouraged to ask senior leaders questions directly
in an open forum, a shift from a culture where, as Dowidar put it, “leaders spoke in monologues.” The
leadership team redesigned the office space to be more open, and to encourage more communication,
collaboration, and mixing across levels. Dowidar noted: “Historically, employees didn’t get to engage
with leaders much.” Moreover, Almansoori partnered with leaders across the group to introduce
‘Green Fridays,’ a full remote working day across the organization to reduce the impact on the
environment. Obaid Bokisha, the Group Chief Operations Officer, explained:
Dena came to me with the idea. In the UAE, Friday is usually a half-day [for the public
sector] as it’s a religious day, so if you allow people to be home, they like it. They can stop
at 12:30 pm, take a shower and dress properly to go to the mosque and pray. Dena’s target
was employee satisfaction. I am also happy for Fridays at home, but I look at it more from
a savings perspective. I told Dena, ‘If you shut down the building on Friday, it will save
me millions of dirhams.’ She recommended the policy at a senior management meeting,
and I supported it. Everybody agreed it was a good idea. Dena tries to align with us before
putting anything on the table.
Organizational and Personal Wins

The change initiatives had an impact on daily life and morale. Hannah Haikal, VP of Talent Strategy
and Analytics, reflected: “I have lots of people coming up to me commenting on how much the
company has changed.” Financial performance was strong too (see Exhibit 3). To underscore its
commitment to the techco strategy, in a bold move, Etisalat Group rebranded to “e&,” which stood for
“Etisalat and more.” After months of research and testing, e& was chosen since it could be pronounced
easily around the world and, as Noreen Nasralla, Group SVP Brand & Communication, described,
“represents growth, the future, and technology,” and “positions us as an international tech group.”
A year in, Almansoori was also pleased by the results of her first performance evaluation. She
recalled, “I was concerned given all the changes and disruption I caused, perhaps it was too much and
too fast, but I ended up having one of the highest performance ratings on the team. This was great
reinforcement [from Hatem and the board] for me to just keep going and keep pushing through.”
Moreover, she felt the senior executives were coalescing, with a late 2021 senior management retreat
being a critical opportunity for building rapport. She organized the session, opening with “Let’s talk
about culture. Let’s discuss how we reinforce our values and role model the change we want to see in
the organization. It starts with us.” An external facilitator broke the executives into teams, and “we
realized we had a lot of similarities we didn’t think we had, even though we’re very diverse, with
leaders from the UAE, Spain, Morocco, Australia, and from different industries and backgrounds,” as
Almansoori put it. The team talked about the importance of “not micromanaging or creating
bottlenecks, but rather partnering together to create an incredible organization and culture.”
Almansoori reflected: “A lot of leaders recognized patterns in their behavior they hadn't realized. Some
realized they micromanaged because they were afraid to fail, or they lacked the right capabilities on
the team. . . It broke down barriers and helped us gel as a team.”
And Ongoing Challenges

The task of developing roles and reporting lines for the new operating model was complicated.
Almansoori explained: “Transforming a company's operating model to create, deliver, and capture
value is a very challenging exercise,” noting difficulties like “resistance to change” and “fear of
cannibalization.” To better execute the HR strategy and support the CEOs in driving their business
strategies forward, Almansoori created HR Business Partner (HRBP) roles within the verticals.
Moreover, a new AI-driven pulse engagement survey in late 2021 showed potential concerns like
lack of career counseling and internal mobility, insufficient recognition, and trouble challenging the
status quo. Many employees had stayed in their roles for several years and struggled to see avenues
for development or growth. One noted, “I felt like I had more potential and yet no opportunity to use
it because I wasn’t very visible.” An employee who had been in the same role for over a decade despite
being enrolled in multiple high potential programs observed: “The processes for analyzing and
advancing high potential employees was lacking.” Almansoori and colleagues in HR were concerned
by these comments.
Internal mobility policy

Almansoori viewed the status quo of internal mobility at e&—one in which employees needed their
direct manager’s approval to apply for an internal role; roles were seldom posted publicly; and there
were restrictions around grade and salary increments—as problematic for e&'s techco ambitions. She
and her team developed a new policy, so that employees would no longer need their manager's
permission to apply for an internal role (see Exhibit 1). Instead, employees could apply for any
position, and if they were offered the job, the HRBP would partner with the hiring and sending line
managers to align on a timeline of transfer. Almansoori explained, “This made the discussion not ‘if’
but ‘when’ the employee could be released.” The new policy involved other changes too, like a user-
friendly portal where employees could view new jobs—all of which were posted internally first.
Almansoori believed the policy was important practically and symbolically: “We’re going from a very
hierarchical, bureaucratic, top-down leadership approach to empowering our employees to drive their
career and growth ambitions. Giving people the opportunity to move and grow within e& is how we
will become the dynamic, high performing company we aspire to be.”
Getting Approval and Launching

When Almansoori proposed the policy at a late 2021 senior management meeting, some of her
colleagues were enthusiastic and believed in the spirit of the policy. “What we're trying to do is really
remove the hierarchy,” Dowidar said. Khalifa Al Shamsi, CEO of e& life, noted: “It’s a great tool for
reskilling people to deliver new jobs as they evolve over time,” adding that “it gives the power to the
employee and not to his/her boss.” However, others had reservations. Almansoori recalled:
We were asked, ‘How are you going to get [employees] to not even ask permission?’ I
emphasized that it shouldn't be easier for our employees to find jobs outside the
company than within, and either way employees don't ask permission to apply
externally. We have limitless career possibilities within our organization for people to
grow, yet we have low internal mobility rates. How is that possible? It can’t be a
coincidence. The culture is just not there yet. The frameworks are not in place.
After they refined the policy, Almansoori took the framework to e&'s nominations and
remunerations committee, along with benchmark data about internal mobility programs at other
companies, and received approval for the new policy. On January 1, 2022, e& employees received an
email informing them of it. Employees reported being incredibly excited. Ehab AbdelHafez, previous
Group Talent Acquisition and Internal Mobility Senior Director, who managed the implementation of
the policy, described the manager view: “We showed them our internal hiring metrics and how far we
are from the benchmark, and many said, ‘Glad to see a policy that promotes career growth,’ yet pretty
much from day one I started getting push back.”
The Managerial Experience of the New Internal Mobility Policy

Many managers saw benefits. For example, roles could be filled faster. Moreover, the policy put an
appropriate burden on managers to be sure they were having career conversations with and
developing their people. One manager commented: “If I cannot give you what satisfies you and you
find it somewhere else in the company or outside…you have the right.”
However, Almansoori and her team received some concerns about the policy. The first was on
timing: managers took issue with when they were looped in. Managers were not alerted that their
employee was moving through the process until HR contacted them to tell them that their employee
had been hired and to discuss the transfer timeline. In contrast, employees were made aware of their
status (e.g., being shortlisted) throughout.
Second, managers felt the policy could be disruptive to the business, particularly because
replacements were not offered. One manager noted: “I support mobility, but what if you cannot find a
replacement on the market? I have the hiring manager asking when [my employee] can be transferred.”
Another explained: “It takes time to find a replacement. I lead an area where I can’t just get people off
the market because employees need to be familiar with our processes, how to deal with our customers,
and so on.” The HR team quickly realized that many managers claimed their area required
institutional-specific knowledge. They noted managers’ proposals like, “Just recruit people within the
same department” or “Offer us replacements if you want us to release employees.” Rodha AlHarthi,
an HRBP, described being in the middle of some of these tensions:
The leaders would always rely on us to retain and hold back talent and say, ‘Well, my
people are being approached internally for other roles and you need to help me retain
them . . .’ so we're put in a situation where the senior management is looking to us for
support to hold back this talent. But it is also our role to ensure we are facilitating and
fulfilling business needs with regards to talent, so then we have to step in and say ‘As
your advisors, you need to let go of this talent. You could use a set of fresh eyes in this
role.’ It's all about a shift in mindset. I don't think some of our leaders have shifted
completely in terms of their mindset, as the policy was recently implemented.
Third, managers reported that the policy sometimes created tension between managers. HR had to
intervene, letting them know that this was not a competition between departments. It was about the
growth of the talent, and as leaders, the focus was to support this growth. Nonetheless, one manager
described not wanting to “disturb [colleague’s] department” by hiring their employees, since
“[colleague] is my counterpart; they are helping me.” Another described that HR “being in the middle”
could complicate what was historically handled between managers.
AbdelHafez estimated that most of the issues were from sending managers asking for an exception
from releasing an employee or asking to push back the deadline of their release. The remaining issues
were from hiring managers asking for things like increases in remuneration or accelerated timelines.
He recalled, “A lot of people were trying to get exceptions. Some of this behavior was coming from the
C-level, whom we were counting on to drive this forward. The dynamics were interesting depending
on what hat the leaders were wearing. Those who were the hiring managers sent me screenshots of the
policy to push for executing an internal move, while leaders who should release the employee simply
said, ‘No, it's going to take me six months to find and train a replacement…’” AbdelHafez and
Almansoori created a “pathway” for exception requests, where managers who felt that they had a
strong case for an exception could request approval from the GCHRO and GCEO directly. AbdelHafez
explained, “As you can imagine, no one took it to them.”
The Employee Experience

In the first half of 2022, 26 employees successfully completed a transfer using the new policy, up
from four during the same timeframe in 2021. Many reported a positive experience, beginning with the
ease of the process. Eman Elsabban, Vice President of IT Integration and Service Transition, described:
“Before, it wasn’t easy to apply because there wasn’t good visibility on vacant positions, and you
needed your manager’s approval. But now everything is posted very clearly on our intranet—the job
description, department, who you’d report to, grade, and so on. It’s very easy. You just go to a link and
attach your CV. You don’t need permission.” Haikal weighed in: “This new policy reflects us doubling
down on empowering employees with the opportunity to apply for roles. We of course want them to
have open and candid discussions with their line managers around career development, but giving
employees the power to decide on when and how to engage their line manager was a game changer.”
Employees also appreciated the signal the policy sent. Rajai Sunna, a Product Development
Manager, noted: “It’s very important because it gives managers the expectation that this possibility [of
their employees leaving] is open. Employees have been empowered to seek out opportunities which
can benefit the organization.” After using the policy to apply for a new position, Sunna moved from
being a manager in the small to medium business team to a new role as senior manager in the mobile
team in just five weeks. Like some of the other employees who reported smooth moves, Sunna had
communicated his desire to explore new opportunities with his manager before he applied. Elsabban
similarly credited her open communication with her manager for her smooth transition: “In my case,
after nine years, I felt I gave my position everything and I have had a well-established succession
planning for years. . . It was not a sudden decision. I was preparing for this process for about six months
internally with my manager. Maybe if I didn’t align in a proper way with my management, it would
have posed a problem because it isn’t that easy to find some of these critical, rare skills . . . we need
career progression of our employees, but we don’t want to hurt the business.”
In addition, employees were excited by the new opportunities the techco strategy offered, such as
roles within e& life. AlHarthi noted: “The minute we started advertising these e& life roles internally,
we’ve had such amazing talent apply. We’re so excited about this because there’s so much knowledge
that we probably were not very aware of, but that existed in our organization. We opened five or six
roles and out of those, at least three or four were filled internally.”
However, there were initially challenges with the policy due to the time taken to get approval for
release from their manager. One way HR had tried to facilitate transfers was to “extend the support”
10
an employee offered to their sending manager for a few months after assuming their new role. An
HRBP noted, “Even the hiring department is more than happy for [the employee] to continue to
provide the support . . . as it tends to ease the tension. But then we have to make sure that there’s a
cutoff date, because then we need to be fair to the individual. They can’t be performing two roles
forever.” Reflecting on their experience, some employees sensed that HR was in a challenging place
and forced to adjudicate between sending and hiring managers.
Moving forward
At the start of 2023, Almansoori reflected on e&’s transformation, which was well underway with
positive initial results. In 2021, the Group had earned record high revenue and net profit, and it had an
even stronger performance in 2022 (see Exhibit 3 for the Group’s consolidated statement of profit or
loss from 2017 to 2022). The market cap touched $75 billion (vs. $40 billion in 2020), making e& the
largest telco in the MENA region by market cap and among the top 10 in the industry globally. For the
first time, e& made the Forbes ‘World’s Best Employers List’; it was one of nine companies from the
Middle East selected.
Almansoori also reflected on the internal talent mobility policy specifically. On one hand, internal
moves were becoming “more normalized,” as Almansoori noted, with 76 transfers in 2022, compared
to 19 in 2021. She added, “when leaders hear people rave about the policy and start to see benefits in
terms of engagement and productivity, they buy into it.” On the other hand, she was aware of the
policy’s challenges, noting: “We have pockets where we still need to educate leaders on why internal
mobility is good for the business and employees.”
Almansoori believed that without profound culture change, the techco strategy would be
challenged. She felt that the internal mobility policy was a crucial lever for fostering culture change,
and the policy itself was a “push” on managers. Now some managers were pushing back, with some
suggesting she change the policy. One idea that had surfaced a few times was to revise the policy so
that HR would inform managers if one of their employees was on the shortlist for an internal role. This
contrasted with the current policy, in which managers’ first knowledge of an employee being hired for
an internal role was when HR contacted them to discuss the transfer timeline. Yet, Almansoori had
tried this before, and the line managers were not always receptive. She wondered, though, if now the
culture was ready to bring them in at an earlier stage. She reflected: “Should I amend the policy by
informing managers when their employee is shortlisted?”
11
Exhibit 1 Internal Mobility Policy Changes
Pre-policy (there was no

established internal mobility New internal mobility policy
Key steps in process policy) (introduced in January 2022)
Posting of internal jobs Few roles posted internally All non-confidential roles posted
internally
Application to new jobs Employee needs manager No manager permission needed to

permission to interview for an apply
internal job (there was no formal
application process)
Notification of shortlist status Manager and employee notified Only employee notified
Notification of selection for role Employee notified and release Only employee notified and
date obtained from the head of discussion starts with HRBP to
department formalize next steps
Hire & transfer Manager confirms whether to HR partners with sending and
release employee, then sets hiring line manager to align on
transfer details transfer date and handover
process and then the employee is
offered the letter
Salary increase/Promotion Employee waits to get the salary Employee gets the salary
increase/promotion associated increase/promotion associated
with new role until the next with the new role immediately
review/promotion cycle. In most
internal transfers, there were no
salary increments or promotions
offered
Source: Company documents.
Note: These guidelines were typically applied, but sometimes there were exceptions.
12
Exhibit 2 e&’s Senior Management Team
Source: Company documents.
13
Exhibit 3 e& Group Consolidated Statement of Profit or Loss (USD ‘000)
Source: Etisalat Group. 2022 Annual Report. https://eand.com/en/system/com/assets/docs/annual-report/2022/en-2022-

eand-group-annual-report.pdf, accessed March 2023. Etisalat Group. 2021 Annual Report.
https://eand.com/en/investors/annual-reports.jsp, accessed May 2022; Etisalat Group. 2019 Annual Report.
https://eand.com/en/investors/annual-reports.jsp, accessed May 2022; Etisalat Group. 2018 Annual Report.
https://eand.com/en/investors/annual-reports.jsp, accessed May 2022.
Note: Figures converted from AED to USD using exchange rate issued by Economist Intelligence Unit. In 2022, at constant
exchange rates, consolidated revenues grew 4.7% (vs. 2021) and consolidated EBITDA increased 3.7% (vs. 2021).
Consolidated net profit grew by a record 7.4% (vs. 2021) to 10.0 billion AED ($2.7 billion).
14
423-059 -15-
Exhibit 4 Almansoori’s HR Initiatives and Milestones
HR Initiatives Description Metrics

Equity in Benefits Equalized benefits for all employees regardless of • Gender diversity 2020: 22%.
gender, joining date, marital status, etc. • Gender diversity 2021: 24% (historical record).
• Gender diversity 2022: 25% (historical record).
Access to Opportunity and Created engagement, excitement, and motivation • Internal Mobility 2020: 14% (uptick given the significant drop in hiring
Growth by providing employees access to internal roles by volume due to the COVID-19 impact).
removing approvals and restrictions. • Internal Mobility 2021: 9%.
• Internal Mobility 2022: 25% (historical record).
Empowering and Trusting Rolled out hybrid model of work and acted on • ‘Always on’ listening approach to take actions quickly and create a
Employees surveys to create more trust and transparency culture of feedback.
through an “always-on” listening strategy. • Surveys sent quarterly since Q4 2021.
• Positive sentiment increased from 42% to 53% (only counting e& UAE,
Launched employee engagement pulse surveys. excluding participating operating companies & subsidiaries) from Q4
2021 to Q3 2022.
Organized design thinking workshops, surveys,
and discussions creating to create an atmosphere
of trust where people have the capacity to think,
where their voice is heard, but they have freedom
to fail.
Busting Hierarchy and AMA “Ask Me Anything Series”: Launched • Reduced number of approvals, documents, and number of clicks to
Bureaucracy authentic discussions between leaders and accelerate decision-making and agility.
employees. • Previously Chief Technology & Information Officer had combined 19
direct reports, which has been reduced to 10.
Process Revamps: Reduced number of approvals,
documents, and number of clicks to accelerate
decision-making and agility.
Cross-Pollination: Exposed employees to different

departments and functions via events like DEI
Think Tanks, Tech Co @ Expo, Youth Council.
New Operating Model Organization Structure/Operating Model revamp: Devolution of authority revamped:
Delayering for flexibility and agility.
• Two layers of hierarchy removed.
• 300+ new roles created.
• 2500+ job descriptions revamped.
423-059 -16-
Exhibit 4 (continued)

Total revamp of rewards system:
• Pay correction based on market movement.

• Revamp of short term incentives (STI) & long term incentives (LTI) for
Executives.
• Introduction of LTI for Non-Executives.
• Redesign of the Fixed Pay Structure.
Consistent benefits for all for the first time in history – regardless of
gender, marital status, or tenure.
Learning the Skills that AI Graduate Program: See case text. • AI Graduate hires 2021: 61 graduates (first year of program launch,
Matter onboarded largest single day cohort in history).
Leadership: Launched Group Organization • AI Graduate hires 2022: 127 graduates.
Leadership Development Program (GOLD), a 12-
month targeted program with trainings from
Cornell, MIT, Wharton, and Columbia Business
School.
Launched executive coaching and workshops.

Rejigging Talent Pool Updated talent pool to meet current and anticipated Gen Z (1996+):
business needs.
• Gen Z 2020: 0.4%.
• Gen Z 2021: 3%.
• Gen Z 2022: 5%.
Under 30 (20-29):
• Under 30 2020: 5%.

• Under 30 2021: 6%.
• Under 30 2022: 7%.
Emiratization:
• Emiratization 2020: 50%.

• Emiratization 2021: 51% (historical record).
• Emiratization 2022: 52% (historical record).
423-059 -17-

Revamped Competency Redefined talent language to identify universal • e&’s Leadership Principles embed a new talent culture of behavioral
Framework behavioral expectations – what we call e&’s priorities, attitudes, mindsets regarding how we go about completing
Leadership Principles. To do so, we engaged a tasks, achieving goals, and engaging with others.
diverse range of stakeholders to better understand • Defines key indicators across talent acquisition, internal mobility,
the key behaviors that are required now and in the succession planning, performance management, L&D, and leadership
future. Feedback and inputs were gathered through development.
a series of workshops, while research was • Standardizes how e& as a Group defines behavior and therefore talent
conducted into our business and people strategies, performance/potential, allowing for like-for-like people comparison
and local, regional, and global benchmarks were between verticals, industries, and across geographies, enabling internal
defined. Outputs showed much more emphasis on and global mobility.
key areas like future-focus and agility (“innovates & • Objectives (the “what”) are meaningfully connected to behavior (the
improves”), learning and growth (“champions “how”) to maximize talent performance, adding clarity, fairness, and
development”), ensuring diversity (”values simplicity.
differences”). At the same time, we updated how
e& defines other key behaviors that have served us
well in the past and will continue to do so as in the
future.
Revamped Performance Performance management: Framework was Implementation of new initiatives in Performance Management in a phased
Management reviewed through a design thinking sprint. approach, with the following in 2022:
Employees were consulted as part of this process
to understand and address pain points. The new • Initiatives to ensure a culture of continuous feedback and
process is focused on supporting employees to development:
perform, develop and grow. It involves continuous o Quarterly Feedback meeting between line managers and
feedback, by introducing quarterly feedback employees. This is an existing practice in e&, however in 2022 we
meetings and a system to capture the progress. It simplified it, and geared it towards current topics, such as working
also involves 360 feedback. from home.
▪ Q1 – 90% completion
Rewards and Recognition: Updated rewards ▪ Q2 – 80% completion
program to recognize innovative behavior, ▪ Q3 – 88% completion
including risk taking.
423-059 -18-

o Introduced 360 Feedback:
▪ 360 feedback pilot with all employees during the Year-end
evaluation: total of 1040 instances of feedback were completed.
▪ 360 feedback pilot with Leadership Team: total of 90 instances of
feedback were completed for 13 participants.
▪ In 2023 a permanent 360 feedback program is planned for roll-
out.
• Calibration meetings held across all e& HQ, including a session with
the GCEO, to ensure alignment and challenge of potential bias.
• e& initiated a design sprint to reimagine our Performance
Management framework in September 2022. Activities within the
design sprint included:
• External benchmarking with global technology
companies
• Pulse survey with selection of e& employees about
how they experience Performance Management and
any suggestions for potential changes. We received
538 responses, including 266 open comments.
• 60 follow up interviews with e& employees, including
individual contributors, line managers, leaders, and HR
professionals.
• Several workshops following design sprint
methodology: three with HR leaders and one with the
leadership team.
• Presentation to the Board about Performance
Management and new framework.
• Continuation of phased roll out in 2023.
Succession Planning and Implemented succession plan for all L0 and L1 and • Interim successors identified for all L0, L1 roles.
Critical Roles L2 roles and identified critical roles across the • 91 successors identified for L2 roles.
group. • 308 critical roles identified within the Group.
• Successor Development Framework designed.
• Competency Framework designed.
Revamped Onboarding There was no formal onboarding process in place, Did a design sprint to revamp the end-to-end onboarding journey.
Process and onboarding scored lowest on the internal Implemented cohorts, pre-joining guides, reduced documents required,
survey. It was a pain point. and eliminated unnecessary joining steps. Introduced onboarding
sessions on Day 1 with welcome kits.
423-059 -19-

Office Space Revamp Moved from closed office to open office to Before: After:
encourage collaboration and creativity.
Data-driven Leveraged analytics and data to make key people- • Created quarterly dashboards to provide leaders with visibility on
based decisions. their people on a regular basis.
• Sent out engagement surveys throughout the year to implement
actions based on people’s feedback.
Source: Company documents

Dena Almansoori at E&

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9 -4 2 3 -0 5 9

REV: JULY 27, 2023

Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change

Building a Global Career

Opportunity at Etisalat: A telco in transition

Why Etisalat Was Looking to Transition and Needed New Leadership

An Ambitious Mandate and Weighty Choice

Early changes at Etisalat

Almansoori’s key HR initiatives

Organizational and Personal Wins

And Ongoing Challenges

Internal mobility policy

Getting Approval and Launching

The Managerial Experience of the New Internal Mobility Policy

The Employee Experience

Exhibit 1 Internal Mobility Policy Changes

Pre-policy (there was no

Application to new jobs Employee needs manager No manager permission needed to

Source: Company documents.

Exhibit 2 e&’s Senior Management Team

Source: Company documents.

Exhibit 3 e& Group Consolidated Statement of Profit or Loss (USD ‘000)

Source: Etisalat Group. 2022 Annual Report. https://eand.com/en/system/com/assets/docs/annual-report/2022/en-2022-

Exhibit 4 Almansoori’s HR Initiatives and Milestones

HR Initiatives Description Metrics

Cross-Pollination: Exposed employees to different

HR Initiatives Description Metrics

• Pay correction based on market movement.

Launched executive coaching and workshops.

• Under 30 2020: 5%.

• Emiratization 2020: 50%.

HR Initiatives Description Metrics

HR Initiatives Description Metrics

HR Initiatives Description Metrics

Source: Company documents

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